Chapter 15: Stats and Stupidity

Yaaaaawn. That was a very nice rest. I was up for too long last night and I really needed a chance for my body to relax and refuel. Now that I’m refueled, I guess it’s time to get to work.

I roll out of my bed and stumble around for a few seconds before finding my balance and regaining my senses. I walk out into the hallway through the large pelt and continue until I am in the main shop area. After a brief look around to make sure that no new items have appeared that I might want to buy. It all looks the same as it did the last time I browsed, so I move on and am almost out the door when a voice calls me back, startling me.

“You’ll want to deal with all of the alerts, before you head out the door.”

I turn to find Roth, a smirk on his face. With a somewhat haughty tone in my voice I answer “Oh. Why is that. And why would you assume that I have any windows to read in the first place.”

“You don’t get the the stat bonuses or anything else from those messages until you read them, so if you want to take on anything more powerful than a Poisonous High Jumper you should probably take the time. As for how I knew, the whole Demon Lands is talking about the Trials of Volos. It is the biggest event to happen in a hundred years! You suddenly disappearing could only mean one thing.

All of the other species got their own challenges too. The humans got the Trials of Phirmus. That’s a phoenix, by the way. It’s kids will probably give some help with resurrecting. Maybe they will let you set a spawn point anywhere you like or something. It’s also got quite the spell casting ability. Fire oriented, of corse. It’s main weakness is in that it isn’t very physically strong.

The Angels, well, those goody two shoes got Helegrand. Luckily for us, it is a pegasus so its children will have basically no combat ability. Unfortunately, they are among the fastest things in existence and have incredible healing ability. We better hope that the people in the Radiant Lands with the most potential don’t care about the war all that much.

Anyway, the Dwarves are doing the Trials of Gorrunder. It is a massive golem that can supposedly forge the stars themselves. His children won’t be that strong immediately of corse. None of the kids will be. All the same, whoever completes the Trials of Gorrunder will very quickly become one of the best smiths in the world. And that’s not to mention the fact that, while it is slow, it has enough strength to break a mountain in half and it’s skin is harder than dimond.

The High Elves are challenging the Trials of Radim. It is some sort of miniature sun. Unfortunately I don’t know too much about that, because the High elves are being kind of tight lipped about it. I think they are trying to surprise the Dark Elves.

Speaking of the Dark Elves. Shadith, a being made entirely from shadow and darkness challenged them. It has a small arsenal of darkness spells, but it’s main strength is in that it is the ultimate stealth being. There isn’t a person in the world that would be able to detect it if it didn’t want to be seen.

The other sentient races are interesting. Almost no champions choose them because they have less advantages than the six main ones. Sometimes people call them challenge races. They all received challenges, but the creatures aren’t as powerful as the six. I suppose it might be the universes way of making things fair. After all, the average kobold has a much greater chance of getting one of it’s beast’s children than the average Demon.

I’ll stop rambling now and let you deal with all of the alerts that you must have. Oh and before you ask I know you didn’t already look at the window’s because Zim followed you last night and told me that you didn’t.”

Wow… that is a lot to take in and I guarantee that I would have forgotten all of it the second after it was spoken if not for the perfect memory thing. I’ll have to think it over again later to make sure there isn’t any info in their that can provide me with some sort of advantage. I doubt it because I will probably never get within a hundred miles of any of those children, but hey, you never know.

Well, time to look at all of those messages.

Due to showing proper caution and adept observation skills when placed in an unfamiliar environment your wisdom has increased by 2.

Due to making the wise decision to take the only item of value in a desolate environment your wisdom has increased by 1.

Due to having an exceptionally quick reaction to an oncoming projectile and being able to doge (and attempt to block) it your agility has increased by 1 and your dexterity has increased by 2.

Due to finding a clever way to disarm the traps that were placed in front of you and being able to quickly solve a difficult puzzle your mana has increased by 1 point (the equivalent of 10 actual points of mana) and your wisdom has increased by 1.

Due to correctly positioning yourself in a way that you were able to catch the enemy unawares and performing an accurate strike your agility has increased by 1 and your dexterity has increased by two.

Due to taking a powerful backhand and nasty sword strike and living to tell the tale your health has increased by 2 points (the equivalent of 10 actual points of heath).

Due to pushing your body to use it’s strength to the utmost for as long as it could your strength has increased by 1 and your endurance has increased by 1.

You have leveled up! Your current level is 2. You have received 5 stat points that you can use to upgrade any of your stats without doing any activities that are related to that stat.

Yes!!! This gets me back everything I had before and more. Watch out Raymond Darkhand, I’m coming up quick.

Still though, I didn’t even last 5 seconds in that battle, so perhaps I should curb that excitement. Even with the extra points, I won’t be able to stand at that level. Progress is progress, but it’s not enough yet. Training time then.

Let’s see, where would be a good spo- wait a second! I haven't distributed my points yet. Every little bit counts. But how to distribute them. Let’s see… first I should consider the things that I use most. That would be agility and dexterity, but it might be good to learn how to train those for the future and if I dump all of my points there then I won’t have much of a reason to do that. Still it’s probably a good idea to put at least a 1 point into each. Yeah that sounds good, one point isn’t enough to make training pointless or make me unbalanced for that mater, but with the points I got on my adventure it should be more than enough to keep me alive. Concentrate… and done. That should do it. Now what to do with the other 3. Hmmm. Ohh theres an idea. One more time and… perfect. Endurance should be perfect.

I’m not sure how easy it would be for others to make the decision to put more than half of the points they earned from a level into one stat that doesn’t really help their combat ability (long fights don’t generally favor ghosts), but this way I’ll be able to fly harder and longer travel for longer when I’m on my adventures and most importantly keep training my stats beyond what I would have been able to do before. I think of it as an investment. I give up some now so that I’ll get more later.

That takes care of my stats, so back to my previous quandary. Where to go for training? I guess I could do the Poisonous High Jumper fields, but that doesn’t seem like the best idea. I’ll get combat experience later, but for now it’s more important to stay safe and get stronger for the next challenge. Huh. I guess I haven’t really been to anywhere that would suit my needs. Sigh. The fallacies of being a newbie… That’s it! I’m a complete beginner so what I need is someone experienced. And luckily I’m staying in the shop of a man who has lived in this city for at least long enough to know his way around. Perfect!

“Hey Roth?” I call out.

“Yeah”

“If I wanted to go train my stats, the normal way by working out and stuff, where would be a good place to go?”

Roth gives out a short laugh then responds “You really are unique aren’t you. Your looking for the training hall. Part of the reason that no one kills Poisonous High Jumpers is that everyone who comes here has already planed out what there going to do until they are level five or so. In almost every single case that plan is to go to the training hall, grind their stats and fulfill non-combat quests (stuff like: deliver this letter to my friend) that the hall gives out until they level a few times, and train with the mock weapons their until they can actually swing their sword without being more of a danger to themselves than the enemy. This isn’t just for the demon lands either. Most champions have never been in a fight in their lives before they get here and so they need to learn in a safe environment before doing anything real.”

Roth pauses and takes a drink from a cup of water on the counter before continuing “Going back to why no one kills Poisonous High Jumpers, once the new Champions are level five and ready to take on the world they go and deal with level five or six monsters with a group of others in a party of friends that they made in the training hall, because it’s relatively safe and gives decent experience. What they don’t do is go deal with the level two or three Poisonous High Jumpers because even though they are easier to kill, they get less experience. Like a quarter as much. If you kill any given monster that is the same level as you then you get an amount of experience that is between two maximum and minimum values. However, if you level up and continue to fight these same monsters then the XP you get will be between values that are half what they were before. The reverse is true when you fight monsters above your level. To put it simply, for every level below yours the XP is halved, for every level above yours it is doubled.”

That was an information overload (or it would have been if not for my incredible mental abilities), but it can all be boiled down to a relatively simple sentence.

“I’m a total idiot!” I almost growl at Roth, face-palming myself “I went into a life or death fight with absolutely no preparation when I could have been training on a straw dummy and gaining experience in a completely safe way. GAH!”

Rothalmost chokes on his water that he was drinking from again from laughing at me. Bastard.

“It’s ok. It’s ok” He responds, still trying to choke down his laughter. “That’s how things are normally done, but that doesn’t mean its the best way. From what I can tell, your ‘idiocy’ got you a pretty good lifetime deal at Depper’s and a bit of cash on top. Besides you can just start now and have no real issues.”

As much as I want to continue slamming my head into the wall, Roth is right. Plus I’m already down by two health points, I should probably stop before I get some debuff. On to the training hall I suppose… idiot!